


no earthly attachments

by min_mintobe



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender, Haikyuu!!
Genre: Fake Marriage, M/M, Minor Character Death, Separated at Birth, but most of them will die, class warfare, ft. the entire cast of hq in some capacity, sibling angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:42:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27741703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/min_mintobe/pseuds/min_mintobe
Summary: "Hello, princeling," the Avatar says, tongue curling out of his mouth, smiling. "I hear you’ve been looking for me. What are you going to do with me now?"“Restore my honour,” Kiyoomi answers.A hundred and twenty years ago the first dual-avatars are born.
Relationships: Miya Atsumu/Sakusa Kiyoomi
Comments: 69
Kudos: 140
Collections: Gensou no Karasu





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Gensou no Karasu ATLAxHQ bang. Thank you mods for organizing!
> 
> The artist I was paired with is Iris, check them out on Twitter [here](https://twitter.com/kuehjpg)!
> 
> Chapter 1 beta'd by the lovely Shar and Blythe, thank you both!

A hundred and twenty years ago the first dual-avatars are born. 

No-one realises for fifteen years. 

Osamu, at three, stamps his foot and sends a clod of earth straight into his brother's face. The caretaker monk winces. Atsumu's screams ring through the air so loudly six monks file a noise complaint. It's only the seventy-eighth complaint the Northern Air Temple creche has received since the twins were dropped off on their doorstep. 

"Osamu," the caretakers cajole, wanting to see if it's true. Wanting to know if he's an earthbender, or just unnaturally gifted at kicking clumps of dirt. If he's an earthbender, they'll soon be rid of half their woes. 

Three weeks later, he finally obliges. Mid-tantrum, Osamu flings himself down on the ground and pounds his fists against the dirt floor. His hands leave dents in the packed earth, and deep crevasses appear in a matter of minutes. 

Atsumu trips over one of them and bawls his heart out. This time his prodigious screams are accompanied by a veritable waterfall of tears, soaking down the front of his shirt. No one wipes his tears away. 

"Contact Joo Lee," the head caretaker says. Joo Lee runs the biggest adoption agency in the Earth Kingdom. 

"What about his brother? Too young to tell if he's a bender or not." 

"We can keep him for now. Best to deal with the earthbender sooner rather than later. The older they get, the less people want them." 

Rich Earth Kingdom families are always on the prowl for unwanted earthbenders to adopt. The younger, the better. The younger they start, the more powerful they grow up to be. Adopted earthbenders are good insurance against potential non-benders amongst their own biological flock. 

It takes only two weeks for a deal to be struck. 

"The Beifongs will take him. They need an heir." 

Every dollar in the Earth Kingdom flows through the Beifong banks. The current Beifong matriarch has dozens of nieces and nephews, but no children of her own. 

Until now. 

At three, Osamu is sent away from the Northern Air Temple. 

He goes quietly, not understanding what it means. 

"SAMU," Atsumu screams. He's always been the noisy one. "SAMU, SAMU—" 

His howls carry beyond the temple walls.

"Do you think," the monk holding him says, feeling the air tremble. "Do you think—" 

"SAMU," Atsumu wails. 

Across the courtyard, a ginko tree abruptly sheds all its leaves. 

"Airbender," the monks sigh. 

It's going to be a long decade. 

_SAMU—_

_Tsumu._

* * *

At six, Atsumu is one of two prodigies of the Northern Air Temple. 

The other boy's name is Tobio. He is just a little bit better at airbending than Atsumu is. 

"Children," Monk Kurosu says. "Acolytes. There is no pride to be found in beating your fellow man. True victory is beating your past self." 

Atsumu hates him. 

_Samu_ , Atsumu thinks, _I really wanna beat this guy_. 

_So do it. There's lots of people I gotta beat, too_. 

* * *

At nine, Osamu beats his nineteen-year-old cousin in an earthbending duel. 

There are no other cousins left to beat. Osamu is just a little bit better at earthbending than the rest of them. 

"My son," his mother says. "Osamu. I'm so proud of you." 

Osamu loves her. 

_Tsumu_ , Osamu thinks, _I wish you could've come with me. Life is so good here_. 

_Sounds like it. Wish Old Fart Kurosu would lighten up sometimes_. 

* * *

At twelve, Atsumu flings himself backwards off the tallest spire in the Northern Air Temple. 

He catches himself inches from the ground with an air bungee of his own making, and goes flying up into the air unharmed. 

The elder monks, after getting over their shock, agree that Atsumu's earned his arrows. 

Thirty-five tiers of airbending, and one invented form of his own. 

Atsumu's a master airbender. 

Tobio isn't. He's enough of a goody-two-shoes to still be slogging through the thirty-sixth and last tier the hard way. 

_Samu_ , Atsumu thinks. _I got my master airbender tattoos today_. 

_Congratulations._

* * *

At fifteen, Osamu's a veteran of the Earth Kingdom social scene. 

He charms the ground out from under the feet of every eligible young person he's introduced to, and returns home dutifully indifferent to them all.

His mother, pleased and proud, starts negotiating his betrothal. 

Thirty-five proposals arrive by flying boar, and none are good enough for her. 

Osamu is relieved. 

His mother isn't. She's rich enough to command respect throughout the Earth Kingdom, but she wants more. 

_Tsumu_ , Osamu thinks. _My mother wants me to get married._

 _Condolences._

* * *

That same week, Atsumu tries to blow out his master's reading candle. The flame burns brighter instead of going out, leaping up in a hot rush of heat. 

In the same moment he feels Osamu trip and fall, a teacup spilling out of his hand. He sees Osamu's hand stretch out to catch it. The teacup falls, and breaks. 

The tea never hits the ground. 

"You are the Avatar," Monk Kurosu murmurs, eyes shining in the blazing candlelight. The world has been waiting fifteen years. 

Atsumu blinks. "Not me," he says. "We." 

_We are the Avatar_. 

* * *

The Beifongs are, understandably, reluctant to part with their heir. 

Osamu Beifong is the most talented earthbender of his generation. Already he has been presented to high society, to the Upper Ring families of Ba Sing Se. Already there are proposals floating in the air, talk of betrothals and succession plans. 

_Osamu is so strong_ , his mother tells her friends. 

_And so rich_ , her friends tell their husbands. 

_And so handsome_ , their children coo. 

"Osamu will be the next head of the Beifong family," his mother tells the monks. "What do you need him for?" 

There's no way around it. 

"We think he might be the Avatar," the monks say. 

Osamu's mother gasps in delight. 

AVATAR BEIFONG, the flyers scream all throughout the Earth Kingdom next day. 

Three hundred and fifty proposals flood in the next day. 

One of them is written by the Earth Queen herself. 

_I write to ask for your son's hand in marriage_ , it says, _on behalf of my son, Prince Takanobu_.

* * *

"AVATAR WHAT," Atsumu screams, throwing the flyer down. The Northern Air Temple is only two hours away from the nearest Earth Kingdom market, and word travels fast. 

"Don't mind," Shouyou says, patting him on the arm. Atsumu swats him away. 

"No one would care if they said AVATAR ATSUMU," Tobio points out. "Nobody knows who you are." 

" _I am the Avatar._ " Atsumu says. 

"About that," Monk Kurosu says. "Atsumu. A moment, please." 

* * *

Osamu Beifong arrives at the Northern Air Temple with an entourage nearly as numerous as the number of Air Nomads currently occupying it. 

In the shuffle to find enough space for all of them, the monks and acolytes are kicked out of their lodgings to room in the air bison stables. 

Atsumu, Master Airbender, has to give up his personal room to Osamu's handmaidens. 

"He's fifteen and he can't dress himself," he complains to his new roommate. 

The air bison emits a deep groan of companionship and licks him from chest to forehead.

In the next stall, Ryuu and Yuu are playing a spirited game of _Rolling Thunder_ with the baby air bison. They hurtle around the stall like pinballs, bouncing off the walls and flopping into the sweet straw with squeaks of delight. 

Atsumu sighs, and trots off to locate his brother. 

_Osamu_ , he calls. He hasn't seen Osamu since they were three. 

_Atsumu_ , he hears. _Not now. I can't leave. Tomorrow, after the formal entrance._

Atsumu ignores him, and blows himself up to the top of the tallest spire in the Northern Air Temple. He works his way down floor by floor, hovering at windows and scaring the wits out of more than one earthbender. He grins at them, laughs at the way they stay far away from the wide windows and open platforms jutting into empty sky. They squint at him, eyes darting in vain to figure out what keeps him afloat in the air. 

Osamu is nowhere to be found. 

* * *

The next morning, Atsumu finally sees his brother. 

He meets him at the same time the rest of the Air Nomads do. The great circular courtyard has been transformed overnight, draped in exorbitant cloths of green and gold. The Air Nomad council of elder monks stand on one side; Osamu and his entourage on the other. All morning Atsumu has been whispering to him, trying to catch his eye. All he gets in return is the frazzled static of Osamu thinking of other things, talking to other people. Even now he's nothing more than a flash of dark hair, a boy still shorter than the men who surround him, bearing banners of Beifong gold. The emblem of the flying boar glitters blindingly in the morning sun. 

The monks' saffron robes pale in comparison. 

"Real gold," Yuu whispers in Atsumu's ear, tugging on his own golden forelock. "I heard the banners are woven with real gold, by metalbender seamstresses." 

"AVATAR BEIFONG," the herald announces. "Of the House of the Flying Boar." 

The banners part, and Osamu steps forward. 

Atsumu's breath catches. 

He doesn't recognise his own brother. 

The ground shivers with every step Osamu takes. The Air Nomads murmur like the wind.

_This is the baby—the baby we gave away—didn't he have a brother—did we keep his brother—who knows—so this is the Avatar—The Avatar—The Avatar._

"Born to unknown parents, Air Nomads," the herald continues. "Raised by the Beifong Family of the Earth Kingdom. We return him to your care and training. May the Avatar preserve the balance of the world for centuries to come." 

Osamu kneels, bowing before the council. 

Atsumu stands, bare feet sweating against the still ground.

* * *

"Water. Earth. Fire. Air. Avatar Roku was from the Fire Nation," Atsumu argues, "which means the next Avatar should be an Air Nomad. Which makes it me, Avatar Atsumu. Not AVATAR BEIFONG, of the EARTH KINGDOM—" 

"Be quiet," Osamu says. 

It is utterly shocking to hear his own voice— _Osamu's_ voice—out loud, instead of the way he's been hearing it in his head for the last twelve years. 

Atsumu falls quiet. 

Standing beside Osamu in front of the council, Atsumu feels, acutely, the distance between them. The rest of the Air Nomads and Osamu's earthbenders have been dispersed, and it's just them and the council now. Twelve years and two feet apart. 

Osamu is taller. _It's the hair_ , Atsumu tells himself. 

Osamu is broader, stronger. _Probably too fat to fly_. 

Osamu is dressed like a prince, and carries himself like one. He stands, back straight, chin level, and waits for the council to decide their fate. He hasn't moved at all in several minutes, hands clasped quietly under sleeves of golden brocade. Atsumu hates him. 

_Stand up straight_ , Osamu thinks. 

_Fuck off_ , Atsumu thinks. 

* * *

The council tests them, one after the other. 

A candle. A bell. A windless room. 

A puddle of water, poured out onto the rocky floor. 

A pebble, to be balanced on its narrowest point. 

The flame bends. The bell chimes. The puddle coalesces into a perfect circle, a perfect moon. 

The pebble rocks upright, and stays. 

The monks observe, and sigh. 

It's faint, but it's there. Both of them can bend all four elements. 

"What does this mean," Atsumu asks. 

"It means they don't need you," Osamu smirks. "Spare." 

Atsumu lunges for his throat. 

Monk Kurosu stops him with a quick flick of his wrist. 

"We will train you both," he decides. " _Separately_. It's too soon to know what this means. The world is already in an uproar over the Earth Kingdom Avatar. To reveal _two_ Avatars would upset the balance of things even more." 

Atsumu opens his mouth to argue. No one listens, least of all Osamu. 

"Avatar Beifong will study waterbending with the masters of the Northern Water Tribe," Monk Kurosu says. "Atsumu. You will go to the Southern Water Tribes." 

Osamu bows, and turns to leave. Atsumu trails in his wake, not quite able to match his strides. 

"Two Avatars," Monk Kurosu mumbles, turning away. "I pray it does not mean we will soon face enough violence to need them both." 

* * *

"Don't touch that," Osamu says, as Atsumu reaches for one of the robes hanging in his room. "That's not yours." 

It's an Earth Kingdom robe, one of several Osamu brought. They're all made of heavy silk, finely embroidered. Atsumu has never seen clothes so splendid. His own robes are worn thin, soft and loose against his skin. Osamu's clothes look like they could stand upright on their own. 

"Sorry," Atsumu says, too shocked to say anything else. It hadn't occurred to him at all that there would be any difference at all between _mine_ and _yours_.

 _Ours_ , the Air Nomads always say. Our food, our clothes, our home.

Atsumu has never owned anything, never called anything his own.

He wears robes that used to be worn by someone who'd outgrown them, and left them cleaned and folded in the common laundry room. When he outgrows them he'll do the same. He flies on a glider he'd made alongside his classmates, a messy affair with rice paper and sticky glue and sturdy strips of wood. Piled in a corner of the training ground, they've changed hands so many times Atsumu wouldn't be able to pick the one he'd made out of the lot. He eats food grown in gardens tended by every Air Nomad, from the head monks of the council to the youngest air acolyte.

But now Osamu is here, with things that he says are _mine_ , not _yours_. 

"Yours?" Atsumu asks, pointing at one thing after the other, wanting to know if everything from books to clothes to hairpins belongs to Osamu. 

"Yes," Osamu says. "Yes, yes, yes. It's all mine."

Osamu owns more things than Atsumu has ever seen in his life. Even the richest Earth Kingdom merchants he'd seen on his trips into town seem like peasants compared to Osamu. He tells Osamu as much. Osamu laughs. 

"Peddlers," he says. "Little village people. You should come to Ba Sing Se one day. I'll show you what rich looks like." 

Atsumu looks at him, and thinks he gets the rough idea. Osamu's sitting in front of a mirror of polished gold, taking down the elaborate hairstyle from this morning. He lays the hairpins down one by one on the table, and tells Atsumu what they're made of. 

Jade. Malachite. Emeralds. Gold. 

The treasures of the earth, excavated from miles underground by the earthbenders who work the Beifong mines. 

Osamu pulls the last pin from his hair, and shakes his hair loose. It falls in dark heavy locks down his back, gleaming in the sun.

Atsumu peers over his shoulder, trying to get a glimpse of his own face in the mirror. 

"We have the same face," Osamu points out, twisting his hair back up into a bun. "Only you have no hair, and a huge ass arrow on your head." 

"It is the mark of a master airbender," Atsumu sneers. "And having no hair helps you feel the air better." 

"You look like shit," Osamu tells him. "Have they not fed you for twelve years?" 

His hand is rough where it curls around Atsumu's arm. Calloused and strong, fingertips blunt from years of punching rocks. Atsumu doesn't pull away. He's half afraid he won't be able to. 

"When's the last time you had a good meal?" Osamu asks. 

"On Sundays we get an egg in our cabbage soup," Atsumu tells him. 

Osamu recoils in horror. 

"Cabbage— _cabbage soup_. Our servants are better fed. They get the leftovers of a roast boar every other month, at least." 

Atsumu shrugs. He can't crave something he's never had. 

"You should shave," Atsumu tells his brother. 

"And look as dumb as you? You wish," Osamu answers. 

"It's tradition," Atsumu says. He'd never thought twice about being bald until now. He doesn't _have_ to shave—some of the monks and acolytes keep their hair, even after they've earned their arrows. Atsumu shaved for the first time when he earned his, and kept the habit ever since. Tradition, like the yellow and red robes the monks wear. 

Osamu's pulling on a set of yellow robes now, Air Nomad style. It's a set he'd brought with him, not the one Atsumu had plucked from the laundry room on their way up. The cotton of his robes is thick and soft, the rich saffron colour of a turtleduck egg yolk. Atsumu kicks at the ground, impatient. Osamu lifts a wide swathe of red brocade from the bed and turns to him. It's embroidered with golden feathers. _Real gold._

"Do you mind?" Osamu asks. "The maids usually do this part." 

"I'll get them," Atsumu says, backpedalling. "See you at lunch!" 

"Wait."

Atsumu hovers at the door, uncertain. Even half-dressed, Osamu is every inch a prince. Just looking at him makes Atsumu's heart burn with something he's never felt before. His fingers itch.

Osamu plucks a trinket from the table—a bauble of carved jade.

"Take this," he tells Atsumu, pressing it into his palm. "It's yours."

_Yours._

_Mine._

Atsumu folds his hand around it and makes his escape.

"Covetousness," Monk Kurosu says, during the noon meditation. "Greed. Jealousy. Let go of them. Let go of your desires."

Atsumu closes his eyes to meditate, but his fingers stay curled around the first thing in his life he cannot let go of.

An hour later Osamu descends for lunch, robes pleated and draped to perfection. Atsumu plucks at his own threadbare, faded robes, and slinks off to eat his lunch somewhere else. 

* * *

Atsumu sits in the late afternoon sun and rolls the jade ball in his palm. It rattles, inner layers of jade knocking against each other. A tiny bead at the centre, in the shape of a flying boar. A second layer of jade around it, two badgermoles digging a labyrinth of tunnels around the flying boar. A final outer layer, flowers and leaves curling in a fine lattice sphere. Atsumu has never seen anything so fine, so carefully made. And Osamu had given it to him so easily, so thoughtlessly. _Yours_ , he'd said, not even looking at it one last time. _Yours_.

Atsumu hears someone coming, and instinctively closes his hand. _Mine_.

It's Koushi, ambling down to join Atsumu in weeding the gardens.

"Avatar," Koushi grins, sinking to his knees and getting to work. "Care to join me?"

Atsumu tucks the jade ball into his robes, and goes.

"Osamu should be doing this," he grumbles, digging his fingers into the soil to pinch weeds out by the root. "He's the earthbender."

"I don't think Osamu Beifong has ever had to do a day's work in his life," Koushi says.

Atsumu thinks about it—a life without weeding, without work—and sighs. He keeps weeding, hating the way dirt pushes up under his nails.

"Covetousness," Koushi says, in a perfect imitation of Monk Kurosu. "Let go of it."

Atsumu laughs, then makes a strangled sound of disgust. Osamu's presence at the Northern Air Temple is turning him into a bad person. Atsumu's a master airbender—the best airbender of his generation. He's never been jealous of anyone, but he wonders how people like Koushi can stand it. Koushi, who's at best a mediocre bender, who might take a lifetime to earn his arrows. Koushi, whose life goes on undisturbed by Osamu's arrival, who keeps weeding completely unperturbed by the existence of people who don't have to weed.

"Life is unfair," Atsumu tells him. "How can you stand it?"

Koushi laughs. It's a refreshing sound, light and happy in the sweltering afternoon heat.

"Life doesn't need to be fair," he tells Atsumu. "We work harder so that those too frail to tend the gardens can still eat. We—"

"Osamu is _not_ too frail to weed," Atsumu interrupts.

Koushi glares.

"We accept those with different beliefs," he continues. "We don't judge them for living different lives, for wanting different things."

Atsumu looks at Koushi, and wonders what someone like him wants. Koushi sees him looking, and smiles. His eyes are the soft grey of a cloudy afternoon, and when he smiles his eyes tilt into happy crescents. Atsumu suddenly has a whole different set of questions in his mind.

"What if what we want is a person," Atsumu asks. "Not a thing."

The look Koushi gives him is altogether too knowing.

"Do you want to _be_ someone?" He asks. "Or do you just _want_ someone."

"Neither," Atsumu answers. "Both."

He can't lie to Koushi.

"You can't be someone else, Atsumu." Koushi's voice is warm, kind. "Avatar or not. You are you."

Atsumu stares at the weeds, ripped out of the ground for no other crime than being who they are. They lie in limp ragged piles, waiting to be composted into fertilizer for the cabbages. 

"And if you want someone—well. If your desire is their desire, then their pleasure is your pleasure, too."

The Air Nomads don't hide their love. The men and women are cloistered in different temples. But nuns and monks come and go freely, and within their own temples and amongst their own sex the monks and nuns love freely.

"What if they don't want you," Atsumu asks, watching the way Koushi plucks weeds out of the damp earth. 

"Then you meditate, and let go."

* * *

"Let go," Osamu orders. 

Atsumu crushes the stiff fabric of Osamu's sleeve even more tightly. 

"Fight me." 

Osamu's eyes snap up to meet his. 

It's nighttime, the last meditation for the day just done. Osamu has done no meditating at all the entire day. Neither has Atsumu, even though he's closed his eyes and kept perfectly still for the dictated hours. 

"Fight me," Atsumu says again, letting go of Osamu's sleeve. "There's an old training court far down the mountain. Dirt floor, dirt walls." 

Osamu nods, and Atsumu leads the way. 

"What have you been doing all day," he asks, genuinely curious. Osamu spends a lot of time cloistered in rooms with various people, and very little time on his own. It's taken all day for Atsumu to catch him alone again. 

"Studying," Osamu says. "All my tutors came with me. Classics. Ethics. Politics. Economics." 

"Planning," Osamu continues, in the wake of Atsumu's non-response. "I'll have to meet many people in the next few weeks. The Southern Airbenders are coming—did you know?" 

Atsumu nods. 

"Fucking _assholes_ ," he tells Atsumu, remembering the first and last exchange program between the Northern and Southern Air Temples. 

The Northern Air Temple takes the airbender children left behind by their free-spirited Air Nomad parents, the children of secret dalliances, the children cast out by superstitious non-benders.

The Crows, they call them. Wild and hungry.

The Southern Air Temple takes the airbender children of the wealthy and the vain, the heirs to the most powerful families in the Four Kingdoms. 

The Foxes, they call them. Two-faced, always smiling. 

There are rumours that the monks of the Southern Air Temple bend the rules for their beloved princelings—that the morning bell chimes an hour later, that the noon meditation is waived, that meat is served at dinner. 

"Aran's cool," Atsumu admits, remembering the only boy who'd bothered to give his first name. "The rest can go fuck themselves." 

"Aran who," Osamu asks. "Where was he from—which house, which nation?" 

"Earth Kingdom family, I think? Don't know which house." Atsumu has no patience for last names. None of the real Air Nomads have a last name. They are all one family, save for the odd airbender born to noble families too proud to surrender them fully. 

"Aran Kita," Osamu says. "House of the Northern Pearl. Or Aran Ojiro. House of the White Rock. Those are the only earthbender nobles to have airbender sons." 

Airbender sons Osamu has never met, though he's heard of them. He doesn't know their first names—knows them only as _Young Master Kita, Little Rock Ojiro_ , knows them only through the whispers that ripple through Ba Sing Se's Upper Ring. _What a pity_ , they murmur. _What a pity they weren't born earthbenders_. 

Atsumu shrugs, ignorant and indifferent. 

They've reached the training court. 

* * *

_Fight me,_ Atsumu thinks, blowing through the decades of dust rising off the dirt floor to reach his brother.

He has fought dozens of earthbenders, and beaten them all.

The markets and villages the monks visit are crawling with cocky, loudmouthed earthbenders. They'd fling a stone right into your eye for looking at them wrong. Atsumu looks at a lot of them wrong, and flings the stones right back. They shout and bluster, feet scrambling in the dirt, arms punching wildly. They're easy to beat.

Osamu doesn't fight like them.

His feet don't move. He doesn't make a sound. His eyes are dark, unblinking. His arms curve through the air, palms open, fingers strong. The earth rises between them, solid and smooth, and Atsumu's left floating with the ground pulled from under his feet.

There is something unbearably graceful in the way his brother moves, calm and calculated. He rebuffs every blast, pushes away every slash like it's nothing but air. Atsumu pauses to catch his breath, and is nearly crushed into the ground by a boulder. The earth bubbles like boiling water under his feet, and he kicks himself into the air to keep fighting.

For the first time, he feels afraid of falling.

The dirt floor and stone cliffs belong entirely to Osamu. There is nowhere to land, no place safe to hide. Atsumu flings hurricanes at him, and watches them dull down to nothing more than a breeze. He doesn't dare to set foot on the ground.

He can't throw Osamu off balance when Osamu never takes his eyes off him, can't get in a single sneak attack. He holds his breath, waiting. He can't waste a single second, not when Osamu is this good.

 _Soon enough_ , Atsumu thinks, _you're going to blink_.

* * *

_Fight me_ , Osamu thinks, pulling up walls of earth to keep his brother at bay.

He has never duelled with an airbender.

The Air Nomads are peace-loving, reclusive. They'd sooner retreat from a fight than fight right. Osamu has seen few Air Nomads, and he's never seen one fight. They smile and bow, faces serene, hands clasped. They're difficult to read.

Atsumu is nothing like them.

He rages and howls, face twisted, voice wild. He leaps into the air, body curving, light and strong. The wind hits like a hurricane, blistering and brutal. Osamu gasps for breath, eyes watering from the effort of keeping them open.

There is something feral in the way his brother moves, instinctive and impulsive. He hunts down every crack, every weakness, brings down walls of solid rock as if they're nothing but sand. Osamu makes the mistake of using the same move twice, and is nearly driven to his knees. The air shimmers, dense and suffocating. Osamu shakes his sleeves back, and keeps fighting.

For the first time, he feels his clothes weighing him down.

Even the air he breathes belongs to Atsumu. There is no way of reaching him, no way of bringing him down. Osamu throws up pillars of stone, and watches them get whittled away into toothpicks by the wind. He doesn't dare to lift his feet off the ground.

He can't sense Atsumu when he's in the air, can't read his movements through the earth. He keeps his eyes open, watching. He can't see air move, but he notices the way Atsumu's holding his breath.

 _Soon enough_ , Osamu thinks, _you're going to have to breathe_.

* * *

"Put your back into it," Atsumu says, collapsing into the dirt beside Osamu. Osamu flicks a pebble at him, and Atsumu kicks him in the ankle. "Hey."

"You put your back into it," Osamu parrots, eyes scrunched shut. "Hell."

They lie in the dirt, catching their breath.

Eventually Osamu thumps a lazy hand on the ground, filling in the potholes and cracks left by their fight. Atsumu draws lazy circles in the air, pushing fallen plants back into their places on the cliffside. They stagger upright, and begin the long climb back up to the Northern Air Temple.

"You blinked," Atsumu says. "So I win." 

"You ran out of breath," Osamu counters, "you deflated balloon." 

"It wasn't a breath-holding contest!" 

"Oh, so it was a staring contest, was it?" 

"I'll suck the air right out of your lungs next time." 

"I'll grind your bones into dust." 

They both start laughing at the same time, clinging to each other and wheezing for air. Osamu slaps the dirt off their robes, and Atsumu straightens them with a gust of wind. They return to the Northern Air Temple side-by-side. It's dark and quiet, hallways echoing with the sweet sound of wind chimes in the night air. Atsumu gestures silently to the air bison stables. _I'm this way_. 

It's Osamu's turn to catch his sleeve. 

_Stay with me_. 

* * *

Two weeks later, Osamu departs for the Northern Water Tribe. 

Atsumu hugs his brother goodbye. 

"I don't have anything to give to you," he confesses, pockets full of the trinkets Osamu has given him in those two short weeks.

"I have you," Osamu says. "I don't need you to give me anything." 

He grins, and Atsumu grins back.

Osamu climbs aboard his sky bison, resplendent in robes of sapphire. He's accompanied only by three of his servants. The rest of his entourage will return to the Beifong estate, their job done. 

_Avatar Beifong_ , they call, waving goodbye as the sky bison rises into the air. _Avatar Beifong_. 

Osamu waves back, a glittering speck of blue disappearing into the wide open sky. 

Two hours later, Atsumu leaves for the Southern Water Tribes. 

He goes quietly, leaving behind almost everything Osamu'd given him. The new robes, the books, the precious stones. He brings only the carved jade ball. 

Class is in session, the wooden training boards swinging and clacking in the wind throughout the training courtyards. Atsumu leads his air bison out of the stables, and doesn't turn to look back. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The shenanigans will only increase from here on out, and so will the pain. 
> 
> Rating is likely to change in future chapters due to graphic descriptions of bending-related injuries and the 100 year war.
> 
> Art+promo tweet [here!](https://twitter.com/min_mintobe/status/1333790708998651906?s=20)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note the rating of this fic has been changed to M.
> 
> Content warnings: Graphic descriptions of the hunting, killing, and eating of animals. ATLA violence (agni kai, war/bending-related injuries and death). Implied minor character death.

Atsumu loves the Southern Water Tribes. 

There he gets his first taste of meat; his first taste of death; his first taste of life. 

Beyond the great halls of the Northern Air Temple is a world he has never seen. 

There are dozens of tribes scattered across the South Pole, connected by rich waters and miles of barren ice. Each tribe has their own practices, their own waterbending forms. Atsumu visits them all. 

_Life is sacred_ , the Air Nomads believe. No animals die to feed them, not even the slugs that plague their cabbage patches. 

_Life requires sacrifice_ , Atsumu learns. No plants grow on the endless plains of ice. 

The Southern Tribespeople slice a seal open from nose to tail right in front of him. A cupful of blood, a mouthful of raw liver, and Atsumu is one of them. The taste of raw meat awakens in him a hunger he has never known. 

"Give thanks to the spirit of the seal," a huntress tells him. Her face is a bloodied half-moon, cheeks and chin smeared red. "Its blood now flows in you." 

"Give thanks to the spirit of the ocean, who nourished it and brought it here to us." 

"Give thanks to the spirit of the moon, the first waterbender, from whom we draw our power." 

Atsumu eats, and learns. 

_Meat tastes good_ , he tells his brother. 

_Yes_ , Osamu answers. _Bit uncivilised to have it raw though._

"The Northern Water Tribe is different," Atsumu's host tells him. "They have a Chief, a court—and cooks, I suppose." 

The hunters teach Atsumu how to cut holes into the thick ice, how to shake a lure, how to spear the fish that rise to meet it. He spears fish, and listens to the way the water whispers under the ice. He graduates from spearing fish to harpooning seals. He learns to make seal jerky without smoke by pulling water and blood out of strips of meat. 

He spends a year racing across the icy seas, flipping icebergs with the seal hunters and raising igloos with his bare hands. He learns the importance of speed, and the importance of slowness. Harpooning a sleeping whale is a matter of seconds. A single spear through the heart, just behind the flipper. Bringing it back to shore can be a matter of hours. 

"We have many boats," Atsumu says, on the way back. "We could've taken more than one whale."

"We are connected to the spirits through the water and the winds and the tide," the hunters tell him. "We take no more than we need. There is no need to rush back home." 

Atsumu stops his surreptitious attempts to blow them back to shore, and the hunters smile. 

Soon enough he also stops using airbending to keep himself warm. His lashes turn white with frost, and the air freezes his lungs. One hunter passes him a hooded coat, lined with thick soft fur. Someone else gives him a pair of boots, someone else hands over a pair of mittens. They laugh at the way he moves, clumsy and unused to so many clothes. Atsumu learns how to handle a harpoon through thick gloves, how to move lightly in heavy boots over packed snow. He lets his hair grow out to keep his head warm. 

_Why are you wasting time hunting_ , Osamu asks. _Have you even learnt any waterbending at all_. 

Atsumu chews on a strip of seal jerky, and doesn't answer. He sees glimpses of Osamu's life—classes, training, duelling. The waterbending masters of the Northern Water Tribes are all men, long-faced and serious and very, very strong. Under their instruction Osamu cleaves the sea as if it's clay and raises siege walls of solid ice. The waterbending masters of the Southern Water Tribes are their shamans, their healers. They anoint the hunters with blood, calling on the spirits to bless their hunts. They bend the water of the womb and the blood of the sick, bringing life and hope into their people's hearts. 

In the evenings Atsumu ducks into the healers' tents and learns how to warm frostbitten flesh back to life, how to deliver babies. His hands are steady, his fingers nimble. He hands a tiny newborn to its mother, and feels a new spirit bloom into existence when the cord between mother and child is cut. _Life is precious_. There is always something to work on, someone to heal. The healers show him how to stitch wounds with needles of ice so fine they leave no scars. He learns how to mend broken bones, how to soothe the eyes of children who have stared too long at the antarctic sun. 

_That's women's work_ , Osamu tells him. _Here in the Northern Tribe the men fight, and the women heal._

_That's bullshit_ , Atsumu answers. 

The children cling to his legs and bring him to the best slopes for otter-penguin sledding. They race, and Atsumu learns how to lose with grace. They teach him how to make perfect snowballs, and Atsumu teaches them how to play _Rolling Thunder._ They tumble about shrieking in the snow until their parents yell at them to come for dinner. They always invite Atsumu to stay. The ice is cold, but the people are warm. 

Nearly a year in, Atsumu longs for some peace and quiet on the open sea. He goes to one of the hunters, and asks for permission to borrow their kayak. 

The woman frowns, offended. 

"You don't have to ask," she says. "Everything that is ours is yours. None of this belongs to one person. It belongs to us all." 

She's talking about the kayak, but Atsumu looks at the eternal sun low on the horizon behind her and sees the entire world. 

_It belongs to us all._

* * *

Atsumu paddles out to sea, and lies drifting under the dancing spirits that light up the night sky. 

The whale they harpooned months ago moves slowly through the clouds, stars glittering in its wake. Seals and fish dance around it, flickering in the dark. Other spirits pass by. Huge hulking forms, the ghosts of sunken ships and ancient seamonsters. Tiny chattering things, sea-otters and land-weasels that clamber into his lap and patter up and down his arms. They scatter in fright when Atsumu laughs. One of the little weasels comes back, curious, sniffing at Atsumu's fingers and bumping its cold nose against his cheek. 

The shamans had taught Atsumu how to soothe dark spirits with waterbending, how to ease their fury and send them peacefully home. But there are no unhappy spirits out here tonight. They dance serenely through the sky, reflected in the black water that laps against the sides of his kayak. The weasel in his lap curls up and falls asleep, purring with contentment. 

Atsumu stares up at the sky, drowsing in delight. 

* * *

Osamu stares into the water, tense with concentration. 

His masters had brought him to the spiritual centre of the Northern Water Tribe—the pool where moon and ocean circle each other in an eternal dance. 

_They balance each other_ , his masters say. _Push and Pull. Life and Death. Good and Evil. Yin and Yang_.

Osamu has never had a single spiritual thought in his life. He contemplates the two fish in the pond, and feels sacrilegiously hungry. 

"Tell us what you see," his masters say. "Avatar Beifong." 

Looking down only makes his mouth water, so Osamu looks up at the sky. The moon is perfectly round. 

"Hunger follows satisfaction," Osamu says, inspired. "Like the new moon follows the full." 

The Northern waterbenders nod and murmur, impressed by the Avatar's spiritual wisdom. 

Osamu escapes to the dining halls, and eats to his heart's content.

* * *

Atsumu moves on from the Southern Water Tribes after a year. 

He travels to the Earth Kingdom, to find an earthbending teacher. 

Osamu returns to the Southern Air Temple, to be trained in airbending. 

_Aran Ojiro_ , he tells Atsumu, the mystery of a year ago finally solved. _Little Rock Ojiro. youngest son of the House of the White Rock. The Prince of Omashu_. 

_What?_ Atsumu asks. _Who. Where? I thought the Earth Prince lived in Ba Sing Se_. 

_Never mind_ , Osamu says. _The foxes aren't all that bad. I like them, and airbending is fun_. 

_Good for you_ , Atsumu answers. He hasn't managed to find an earthbending teacher. 

He tries different schools, different masters. The headband covering his airbender tattoos makes his skin itch. The masters are stern and unyielding, feet planted firmly in the ground. They remind Atsumu too much of Osamu. Their students are half Atsumu's age, and knock him down to the ground with no hesitation. Atsumu picks himself up, dusts himself off, and keeps looking. 

He's still looking for a teacher months later when he sees posters of Osamu splashed all over the town he's in. Behind Osamu are six Air Nomads. None of them have their heads shaved. All of them are wearing very non-traditional Air Nomad robes. 

AVATAR BEIFONG AND THE FLYING FOXES, the poster says. And underneath it, in fine print: _presented to you by The Flying Opera Company_. 

Atsumu buys a ticket. 

His brother's life flashes past over the course of the next few hours, accompanied by circus acrobatics and earthbending stunts. The players cannonball into the air without looking down, and stay there. The audience gasps. 

_Airbenders_ , Atsumu thinks—but no. He couldn't do what these earthbenders are doing. Torsos twisting, flinging boulders left and right. They look utterly uncoordinated. Rocks and clods of earth fly every which way, slamming into the ground hard enough to rock the audience in their seats. And yet. 

The players remain perfectly in sync, cartwheeling in the air through the whirling rubble, whooping and laughing. They snap their fingers, kick their heels, and elbow their way through Osamu's life story. One by one the players tumble gracefully offstage: Osamu's cousins, beaten. Then the dirt stage crumbles into a sea of sand, golden waves rising and heaving like real water. An elegant palace of sandstone rises out of the churning sand. The Royal Palace of the Northern Water Tribe. 

It is earthbending like Atsumu has never seen. 

He knows the earthbending basics—soles planted firmly into the ground, palms open. Enduring, strong. Osamu. 

Osamu—who is, on stage, involved in some kind of complicated romantic subplot with a Northern Water Tribesperson who appears to have followed him to the Southern Air Temple.

 _Who's this_ , Atsumu asks, yanking at his brother's consciousness, trying to piece together the plot he'd missed while watching the earthbending.

On stage, delicate petals of shale break and float suggestively down over the silhouettes of two lovers embracing.

 _NOBODY_ , Osamu answers, slamming the connection between them shut. 

Atsumu's eyes hurt from the whiplash, white sparks on the backs of his eyelids. 

Then the flying foxes appear, and Atsumu shoves the question of his brother's love life aside to enjoy the rest of the show. 

* * *

The next day Atsumu returns to the great tent hours before the scheduled show, determined to snoop. 

The players are rehearsing their opening act, laughing and jabbing at each other in trios and pairs. They fling themselves into the air, reckless and carefree. Atsumu realises it's not the same routine he saw yesterday. None of it is choreographed, the insane cartwheels and close calls. It's all improvised, one player leaping up after the other with careless grace. 

Atsumu edges closer, entranced. He still can't quite figure out how they're staying in the air. 

They're not airbenders, but they almost look the part. Their robes are light and loose, not the kind of dark, heavy fabric Atsumu's come to associate with most earthbenders. They all wear the same muted yellow—the muddy colour of the great yellow river that winds through the Earth Kingdom. Something about it makes Atsumu feel at home. 

One of them notices Atsumu watching, and trots over grinning. 

"Dust-steppers," the man says proudly. There's a golden stud through his tongue, and an equally gleaming look in his eye. "They bend the dust beneath their feet to stay in the air. Would you like to learn how?" 

_What on earth are you doing_ , Osamu asks. _Are you joining the circus?_

"Yes," Atsumu says. 

* * *

The Flying Opera Company turns out to be one third theatre, one third diversionary earthbending, and one third redistribution of wealth via scamming the rich and giving to the poor. 

"It's not stealing," the ringmaster tells Atsumu. "The diamonds we sell to them are real."

Atsumu trots obediently beside him, pushing bread and coin into the hands of the knock-kneed, gap-toothed children that hover on every other street corner. The diamond they sold last week has lasted them through three such towns. 

The Flying Opera Company travels the length of breadth of the Earth Kingdom that year, teaching Atsumu everything they know. 

How to conjure false palaces out of sand. How to gain legal entry into real palaces carved from marble. 

How to forge diamonds from coal. How to melt hearts of stone. 

How to bend earth. How to move mountains. 

Atsumu can only stare in awe as the ringmaster whips out a diamond and sweet-talks noble after noble into parting with money, land, and—in one particularly memorable case—the family's youngest son. 

("Don't cry," Atsumu says, awkwardly saddled with the latest addition to the troupe. 

"I'm okay," the lanky boy shrugs. "I've always wanted to join the circus. Call me Boba.")

Boba ends up getting along so well that he becomes the first noble to visit the ringmaster's home along with Atsumu and the rest of the troupe. 

The ringmaster's name is Yuuji. Family name Terushima. _Shining Island_. 

The Terushimas have a monopoly on the diamond trade. Their ancestral island is the only place in the four kingdoms where diamonds are found. And when no more diamonds were left to be found—they improvised. 

Atsumu watches entranced as lumps of coal pass through the crushing pressure and heat generated by a dozen burly earthbenders and one deceptively slender lavabender. The rocks that emerge on the other side are colourless as air, clear as water, blazing with the brilliance of fire. 

"Diamonds are the perfect stone for an Avatar," Yuuji tells Atsumu. "How much do you think your brother's mother would pay for one of these?" 

Atsumu very carefully makes sure Osamu sees and hears none of the ensuing conversation. 

* * *

At the end of the year, Atsumu bids farewell to the Flying Opera Company. 

Air. Water. Earth. 

_Fire_ , Atsumu thinks, watching the flame of his oil lamp stretch and curl. _Fire_.

 _No_ , Osamu's voice suddenly says. Atsumu nearly cracks his skull against the wall he's leaning on. It's the first time he's heard his brother's voice in months.

 _Something is rotten in the Fire Nation,_ Osamu says. _The way is shut._

_What?_

_Borders are closed to non-citizens. Gin said so._

_Who?_

_Ginjima Hitoshi. The Ginjima family are royal silversmiths._

Like Atsumu cares. 

_Come back,_ Osamu says. _Come to the Southern Air Temple._

Atsumu goes. 

* * *

The first thing Atsumu does when he sees Osamu again is try to kill him. 

Sadly, he doesn't succeed. 

They stumble out of the rubble of the training grounds hacking and wheezing, faces dirty and limbs weak. 

The Foxes, ensconced safely in a clean bubble of air, applaud politely.

" _Fuckers,_ " Atsumu hisses. 

"I was rooting for you," Aran points out. He's only twice as gorgeous now as he was when Atsumu first met him, all gleaming muscle and radiant warmth. 

"Not you," Atsumu rasps, avoiding Aran's smile to glare at the rest of their audience. 

"This is my twin brother," Osamu tells them, as if anyone with working eyes could possibly think otherwise. "Atsumu. Of the Northern Air Temple." 

Atsumu sniffs, inhales dust, and sneezes. 

Osamu pretends not to hear this. 

"This is Ojiro Aran. Earth Kingdom. House of the White Rock. The Prince of Omashu." Aran inclines his head, still smiling. Atsumu pretends the dust in his lungs is why he can't quite breathe. 

"I know him," Atsumu eventually says, when Osamu's expectant silence has stretched for a moment too long. Osamu sighs. 

"Kita Shinsuke," Osamu says, gesturing to a grey-haired youth with ageless eyes. "Earth Kingdom. House of the Northern Pearl."

Kita nods. Atsumu nods back. 

"Akagi Michinari, Prince of the Red Tree, seventeenth in line to the throne," Osamu says, moving on to the two airbenders from the Fire Nation. Their robes are redder than blood, far redder than any airbender's robes. Prince Akagi glances quietly at Atsumu. 

"Ginjima Hitoshi," Osamu continues, "Fire Nation—" 

"Royal silversmiths, yes. I know." 

Gin shoots him a smile, sharp and quick. Atsumu decides he likes him. 

"Oomimi Ren and Suna Rintarou," Osamu says, clearly saving the best for last. "Northern Water Tribe. Prince—" 

"Hullo, loverboys," Atsumu grins, staring at the two of them. One of them has to be Osamu's alleged lover from AVATAR BEIFONG AND THE FLYING FOXES. "So which one of you kissed my brother?" 

Osamu turns and knocks the air right out of Atsumu's lungs.

It turns out they have the energy to fight another bout. 

("Can't believe someone actually fell for yer ugly mug, 'Samu—and a Northern Water Prince, at that. Can't believe you never told me!" 

" _We have the same face._ "

"Not when I'm done with you we won't." 

"You couldn't lay a finger on me if you tr— _ow!_ ")

By the time they emerge again the sky is dark, and the rest of the foxes have wandered off for dinner. 

Atsumu licks quietly at the inside of his cheek, taking stock of all the scratches and punches Osamu had inflicted. _Brute._

Osamu, looking decidedly undignified, straightens and cleans his robes. Long strands of hair are falling out of his now-dishevelled topknot, yanked out of place by Atsumu's teeth. _Beast._

Aran greets them at the entrance to the dining hall. 

"What's all this then?" Aran says, giving them both an unimpressed once-over. "Brawling on the temple floor?" 

"Shut up," Atsumu says, with some feeling. His eyes hurt, and he's sure it's because Osamu somehow managed to scratch his eyeball. 

"Is there any food left?" Osamu asks piteously. 

"Kita saved enough for you both," Aran says, turning and waving for them to follow. 

* * *

Clean and fed, the twins turn to the problem of a firebending teacher. 

There are no longer any firebenders to be found outside of the Fire Nation. 

Either they have been recalled, withdrawing behind borders that grow more heavily guarded by the day—or they have gone into hiding, retreating into forests and swamps no Fire Nation soldier would willingly enter. 

No firebenders can be found to train the Avatar.

They make do with two airbenders. 

"The Ginjima family's forges have been burning ever since the royal family ascended the throne," Gin says, on the first day of firebending training. "Call me Master Gin. Akagi's family tree has been burning since the day it was planted five hundred years ago. Call him whatever you like." 

Akagi grins, bouncing on his toes beside Gin. He's warmed up a lot since their first meeting. 

They lead the twins through the basics—breathing exercises, meditation chants, the proper stance.

"Widen your stance!" Gin barks. "Bend your knees!" 

The twins obey, shuffling themselves into a stance that meets Gin's approval. 

"Feel the heat of the sun," Akagi says. "Concentrate on it." 

And then he leaves them there. For four hours. 

"Fire comes from the breath," Akagi says, as Osamu nods off for the third time that morning. "Fire comes from _concentration_. Breathe in. Breathe out. Don't fall asleep." 

Osamu was not made for meditation. He yawns, grumbles, and closes his eyes again. 

"Rocks for brains," Atsumu mutters under his breath. 

"Talking is not concentrating," Gin snaps, whipping around to glare at Atsumu. "Do you see Osamu talking?" 

Osamu smirks, eyes still closed. 

Atsumu grits his teeth and closes his eyes too. 

* * *

Firebending turns out to be much more boring than either of them had expected. 

For one—there isn't any fire involved at all. 

Akagi insists they meditate until they have mastered breath control—whatever that means. Atsumu was born an airbender. He's sure he knows how to control his breath. Akagi and Gin don't seem to think so. 

"We've been breathing for weeks," Atsumu complains. 

"You want to stop breathing?" Gin snorts. "Widen your stance!"

Behind him, Akagi grins.

* * *

"We're never going to learn firebending at this rate," Atsumu mutters to Gin over dinner. "Do either of you even know how to firebend?" 

Gin laughs, a bright loud sound. Atsumu likes the way it rings around the dining hall, like the sound of a hammer striking an anvil. 

"I didn't realise I was an airbender 'til I was twelve," he tells Atsumu. "I went through firebending school with the rest of my peers. All I could produce were puffs of hot air."

Gin's parent's had sent him to school when he started walking, despite him showing no sign of firebending. His mother's fire is hot enough to melt the coldest of metals—hotter even than the eternal fire burning in the courtyard of the Royal Palace. His father's skill brings metal to life. Fine weapons and jewelry from the family's forges adorn the royal family and their inner circle. 

"All of them just thought I was a terrible firebender," Gin recalls. 

It had been a travelling monk—an air nomad—who'd discovered him. 

* * *

("Show me," Gin remembers him saying. 

Airbenders are a rare sight, and Gin's parents try to talk the monk into watching his little sister perform firebending instead. At least she can produce flames. 

They'd settled on a joint performance, Gin's face burning in shame as hot air rises from his fists. 

But later that night he'd crept downstairs to hear the monk talking to his parents. 

"Your son is no firebender," the monk is saying. "He is an airbender. Let him come back to the Air Nomad Temples with me." 

"Let him keep his name," Gin's father says, as his mother weeps. "Return him to us when he comes of age.") 

* * *

Three weeks before Gin's birthday, Atsumu walks in on him shaving his head. 

He's crying, and Atsumu hovers at the doorway for a second too long—Gin sees him, and Atsumu has to go in. 

"What happened?" Atsumu asks. He'd thought Gin was due to return to his family soon. 

Gin hiccups, scrubbing the tears from his face. He'd done a bad job at shaving his hair off—there are patches of stubble here and there, and a chunk of hair behind his ear he'd missed entirely. 

Atsumu takes the shaving tool out of Gin's shaking hand and shuffles behind him to do it properly. Gin lets him, weeping and hiccuping in turns as Atsumu carefully runs the curved blade over his scalp. 

There's a letter on Gin's table right in front of him. Atsumu reads it with no shame.

 _To have a airbender in the family is a disgrace_ , the letter reads. _It is dishonour._ _It has taken me years to persuade your father of his folly in allowing you to keep the family name. Now he has seen the light. Your sister will inherit the family name. You are no longer expected to return. Shave your head. Burn everything you took from us. Forget your name._

"I am no longer my family's son," Gin tells him, tears still rolling down his cheeks.

Atsumu hums, not quite able to understand his pain. The orphaned and disowned show up at the Air Temples often. It's no disgrace. Still, he's as gentle as he can be while scraping off the last of Gin's hair. He even manages to coax a watery smile out of Gin by polishing the top of his now-bald head with his sleeve. 

"We match," Atsumu tells him, running one hand over his own shaven head. 

Gin moves out of his room after that, no longer one of the Southern Air Temple's honoured guests. 

Atsumu shifts beds so he can sleep beside Gin in the temple dormitories. 

Osamu helps Gin burn everything he'd brought with him to the Southern Air Temples when he arrived five years ago. The scrolls, the weapons, the books and robes. Atsumu thinks this is a waste of perfectly good things that could have been given to the poor. But there is, apparently, an established set of customs for how to handle the possessions of the recently disowned. Akagi had discussed it in fervent whispers with the other foxes, and they'd put together a ceremony that seemed to give Gin some closure. 

"I'm actually the third son in my family," Akagi murmurs to Atsumu as they watch Gin's things burn. "I'm only prince because my brothers got disowned." 

"What for?" 

"Talking back to their firebending teachers." 

Atsumu stares at him, disbelieving. 

Akagi shrugs. 

"Honour matters more than family," he says. "My father said he would take one of them back, so they fought an agni kai." 

"Agni kai—a duel?"

"To the death," Akagi says. "One of them died that day. The other one died of his injuries two weeks later. They were both very good firebenders. If my father had known then that I'd turn out to be an airbender..."

Akagi trails off, staring into the fire. Atsumu stares at his face, solemn in the flickering light. He'd had no idea. 

_Did you know_ , he asks his brother. 

_Yes_.

"Gin's lucky he lasted this long," Akagi says. "His father is too kind. I'm only still prince because there are no more sons in the family, and without a son my father has no claim to the throne." 

The bonfire is dying down, the heat fading from the air. 

Gin steps away from the smouldering remains of his past life. He glances up, catching Atsumu's eye. Atsumu smiles at him. 

Gin smiles back. 

He has no name, no family. 

He's only an Air Nomad now. 

* * *

"Fire comes from the breath," Gin says, for the hundredth time. 

"Not from the muscles," he snaps, glowering at Osamu. 

"—and it's not just hot air," he continues, when Atsumu starts to snicker. 

It's been several months, and they're making some progress with firebending. Atsumu has the natural talent for it—fire is drawn to him, candle flames curving towards him at night, oil lamps sputtering in his wake. Osamu has no such affinity, but his stubborn skill makes up for it. 

"I'm pretty sure it's from my muscles," Osamu says, sweating and panting in the sun. Flames lick up his arms, and Osamu grunts with the effort of aiming them at Atsumu. 

Atsumu dances out of his reach, sparks stinging his bare feet. He's pretty sure it's fire holding him up. Not dust. Or air. 

Gin sighs, extinguishing their flames with a gust of wind. 

"Weak," he says. "A baby airbender could beat you both in a fight." 

They break for lunch, and talk turns to the situation in the Fire Nation. Trouble is brewing. Travellers are no longer allowed in or out. All correspondence is screened. Only soldiers leave the Fire Nation now, hunting down the last of its citizens to bring them home. Two patrols were sent to escort Prince Akagi home last week. 

Gin, nameless and hairless, slips quietly under their radar. 

(Later—much, much later—they find out that the airbenders within the Fire Nation had been enslaved. Chained to the bellows, put to work fanning the Fire Nation's great forges, the ones that built their weapons and warships. Worked to exhaustion under the command of Forgemaster Ginjima, and left to rot in their shackles. 

"They wouldn't do this to a prince," Atsumu says, as Gin cries and cries. "They wouldn't."

They've been at war for three years at that point.)

But here, now, under the blue sky and the hot sun, war still feels far away. 

* * *

The only kind of fight on Atsumu's mind is getting to duel the foxes. 

"They are the heirs of some of the noblest families in the four nations," Osamu tells Atsumu, giving him a meaningful look. He's driving at a point Atsumu can't see. All he wants to do is fight. 

Osamu sighs. He's been doing that a lot lately. 

The Beifongs have sent a whole entourage—bodyguards, advisors, diplomats. Osamu spends long hours locked away with them and the rest of the foxes. 

Atsumu sits on the floor outside with Gin, sorting Osamu's marriage proposals into _Yes_ , _Maybe_ , and _No_.

"Too young," Atsumu snorts, showing Gin a portrait of a toddler. 

"Too old," Gin snickers, showing him one of a man at least three times their age. 

"I think Osamu would rather marry her brother," Atsumu mutters, when they find one on behalf of Suna Mizuko, Princess of the Fifth Northern Water Tribe. Osamu'd told them to pick out the ones in a three-year radius of their age, and first in the line of succession to whatever titles they stand to inherit. Mizuko is two years younger than they are. 

"Maybe I'll manage to kill Suna when I duel him next week, and then she'll be first in line," Atsumu says, but his heart isn't in it. 

Gin wrinkles his nose, and puts the proposal in the _Maybe_ pile. 

* * *

Atsumu doesn't manage to kill Suna. 

It's a close fight—Suna's fast and flexible and it's near impossible to land a hit on him. 

Atsumu feels like he's going up against a solid wall even when there's nothing but air between them. They're airbending within the traditional circular ring—the first to get blown out loses. 

Oomimi and Kita sit drinking tea on the sidelines, watching them fight. They look like an old married couple. Atsumu tells them as much when he strides out of the ring victorious. Oomimi frowns, annoyed. Kita only smiles serenely. 

Behind him, Osamu helps Suna to his feet. They've been acting like an old married couple too. Atsumu's fed up with all the domesticity. He's raring for a good fight, and drags the foxes into the ring one by one. 

Kita is easy to beat. So is Oomimi. 

Aran puts up the hardest fight, and nearly sends Atsumu careening out of the ring from the very first blow. But Atsumu comes back with every dirty trick he'd learned in the last three years, and finally trips him out of the ring. 

Atsumu's exhausted at the end of it, panting and dripping with sweat. 

Gin blows a breeze towards him to cool him off. The breeze is _hot_ , and Atsumu tackles him into the dirt as well, yelling over the ringing peals of Gin's silver-bright laugh. 

* * *

Atsumu duels every airbender in the Southern Air Temple willing to take him on, and more than a few of those unwilling. 

He duels each of foxes again, and beats them all again. 

Osamu hunts him down after that, frowning. 

"They are the heirs of some of the noblest families in the four nations," Osamu tells Atsumu. It's not the first time he's said this. "You could stand to give them a little face." 

_You could stand to let them win_ , he means. 

"I am better than them all," Atsumu points out. 

"At airbending, yes." 

"What else is there?"

Osamu sighs. 

"Just—stop," he tells Atsumu. 

Osamu looks tired. When Atsumu looks in his head it's full of things he doesn't understand. Astronomy charts, meteors and moon cycles. Fire and Water. Earth and Air. Men and weapons. Supply chains and evacuation plans. His family. 

The earthly attachments of those who live with their feet chained to the ground. 

Atsumu has never encountered a problem he couldn't fly away from, and he's not about to let Osamu become one. 

"I'm bored," Atsumu says, kicking himself into the air so he can stare down at Osamu. "Fight me." 

"Can you try for once in your life to understand that not everything is about you?" Osamu asks. 

Atsumu blinks, blindsided. 

Osamu has spent the last few weeks cloistered away with his advisors and the council of elders, foolish old men who hang off every word that drops from Avatar Beifong's enlightened lips. Atsumu has spent most of that time picking fights with airbenders who have long since tired of being beaten by him. 

"It's unbecoming of an airbender to be so aggressive," they mutter, "and hardly appropriate for the Avatar's—well." 

_The Avatar's brother_ , they mean. _The spare._

"I'm not the one who thinks everything is about me," Atsumu tells his brother. "Avatar _Beifong_."

Osamu stares at him unblinking, furious but too tired to fight. 

"Not everything is about you and me," Osamu finally says, looking away. "War is coming." 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Fanart] untitled.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27753235) by [yakus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yakus/pseuds/yakus)




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